This is so refreshing

I was lucky to have an education in history and classical studies, and I participated in the Honours Program at UK, a Great Books programme, not quite a major, not quite a minor, it's just on my diploma as a separate course of study, which included not just great literature but the gamut of philosophy from ancient to modern times. Add library science into that, and you've got critical thinking, critical analysis of sources, and expertise in finding resources in various media, as well as cataloguing them in ways to make sure they can be found. So...this is really refreshing in a world of AI and short videos where teens challenge each other to eat laundry pods. He's really right. What the world of business needs is not automatons who can do cookie-cutter tasks that can be replaced by technology; they need people who can think outside the box and think better than a computer...and that means they need to analyse things better than artificial intelligence as only a human mind can. That you get from things like, you get it, the humanities, philosophy, all those majors that get no love. Or, for that matter, just reading wonderful books. We have all the knowledge of human history practically available at our fingertips on the internet, and we use it for the stupidest things. Any of us can educate ourselves and become well-read, and it's a shame that so many people take absolutely no advantage of it.

As CEOs predict AI will rival humans in 5 years, Shark Tank’s Daniel Lubetzky tells Gen Z to get off TikTok and study Greek philosophers to get ahead

Today I:

1. Paid my rent
2. Took books back to the library and got some more
3. Called and cancelled the game.
4. Helped a friend look over some things in preparation for going to the store
5. Helped a friend get reading glasses and those eyeglass holders
6. Took a friend to the store for a larger run than we though at the bigger store which was hot, and neither of us thought we'd make it
7. Got another friend a chocolate shake
8. Watched an interesting video on the philosophy of the question of the reality of fictional objects and entities (thanks to YKWIA)
9. Watched a hilarious Christmas episode of 'Eureka' where the characters were translated into lots of cartoon styles and Jim Parsons of 'The Big Bang Theory' was the voice of Carl the ever-suffering Jeep driven by the sheriff
10. Rubbed a friend's feet until he fell asleep
11. Chatted a bit with the other for awhile
12. Came home
13. Had a bite to eat
14. Listened to some music
15. Read a book
16. Took a nap
17. Paid my cell phone bill
18. Revamped my résumé and curriculum vitae online, since I'd redone the print ones
19. Removed the steri-strips on my incisions, as they were curling up and they had told me that would be the signal to remove them--seems odd to have a bare knee again

So it was a busy day, but not so much as a normal Saturday, and I had from about 6 pm on to myself. We're not playing Call of Cthulhu tomorrow, so I'm going over much later than normal and presumably I'll work on some things here, like straightening up, getting a little laundry together, putting the massive laundry from last week away (no, still haven't done that), made the bed completely (it's just blankets and two pillows right now), take out the trash and recyclables, that sort of thing. Also I want to try out a popcorn popper I got some time ago, take it out, and figure it out. It and air popper, but it's round rather than the normal air poppers. Then I'll go over to their house, do my little bit of laundry and some things around there, and visit. I don't think we're all up to watching The Grand Budapest Hotel at the moment, so while I have it, that may be put on hold until sometime next week.

I was reading Thoreau last night

I haven't gotten very far in Walden, just as far as him finishing the building of his house. But among the various passages that struck me was this:

I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and threw them out the window in disgust. How, then, could I have a furnished house? I would rather sit in the open air, for no dust gathers on the grass, unless where man has broken ground.

That passage says volumes about our need for useless things around us while our minds lie empty and dusty. I suspect it was these words and similar ones that caused a friend to give me the book. I tend to surround myself with things (not expensive things, but things most people would not find sentimentality in, that I invest emotion into and hoard), but I have a largely untrained mind. Oh, I went to college, had a classical education in the humanities, etc. But so much of my day is spent reacting to the things around me rather than in quiet contemplation. Like my house, my mind is organised in piles and shelves that lean, and compared to my friend, is most likely quite dim. I'm probably more self-aware than most, and maybe even think a little more than most, but I realise I could be more. And my memory, alas, my memory. It's like everything I knew--those useless facts, those overarching paradigms, are running like sand through an hourglass away from my thoughts. Maybe that's age, or the blood sugar's effect on my brain, etc. I don't know. I seem to be able to remember numbers best, but have no reason to.

Years ago I fell into a trap whereby I compared myself to someone who is extremely intelligent, beyond the chart, has an excellent memory, as well as a trained mind. I feel quite stupid in comparison, and that, coupled with the attempt to disabuse me of my need to feel special by latching onto the genius label I was given as a child, meant that after awhile I started feeling like I was, well, dumb.

Socrates said (or at least Plato told us so) that he was wise, as the Oracle of Delphi had pronounced, only because he recognised his own ignorance. He also said, 'The unexamined life is not worth living.' It is a mantra that has been repeated to me so often over the years by my mentor, who is also the one who gave me Walden and Other Writings by Henry David Thoreau.

It may have taken years for things to really settle in, years of examining my life and the world around me with training wheels and a steadying hand, but it's high time I started really thinking and analysing on my own. I've been very fortunate to have two very special educations, and it's time I started really exercising both mind and body. Now that I'm older, I'm a little wiser and more mature, and can appreciate all this better than when I was younger. So much of my time when I was younger was spent surmounting my baggage and my irrationality, my mental issues and psychology. Now I can concentrate on how I think about and interact with the world. And I need to do some housecleaning in my head first, dusting off and pitching a few things. :)

Small actions matter

Someone related the following to me yesterday:

He was at a bus stop with an older black woman and a young foreign woman. It was raining. A young black man walked up to the stop with an umbrella and offered the young woman a ride (despite the fact that his car was nowhere to be seen). She agreed haltingly, at which point my friend (ever known for his tact) intervened.

Him: Excuse me--where are you from?
Woman: The Philippines.
Him: Do they have cars there?
Woman: Well, yes (sounding offended).
Him: Did your mother ever tell you not to get into a car with a strange man?

At this point the woman sheepishly said yes, becoming aware of her situation. The man was angry and walked off in another direction (still no car in sight). She then admitted it was odd. For all I know, his intervention may have saved her life. Who knows what was going on with the guy offering the ride?

I told a co-worker this story, and she had one of her own. One of her friends saw a woman who looked to be in her late 70s struggling with a granny cart with several grocery bags in it. He stopped, got out, and showed her his ID, asking if she wanted a ride. She was deaf, but he managed to make her understand his offer. She agreed. He packed her and her things into his car, went down to the light and turned around. As he was coming back, a truck ran into a car, triggering a pileup where the vehicles wound up right where the woman had been standing. She wouldn't have heard the squeal of brakes or otherwise known what was going on behind her until it was too late. Again, it was a small act, but most likely saved a life.

Sometimes it's those small interventions that have great consequences. I guess I'm musing on the butterfly effect. But it also shows that it is always good to act when acting is right. Both men did good by choosing to act. Most people wouldn't want to involve themselves. The good person does good for its own sake and because it is the right thing to do. I admire that, although I don't always choose wisely myself, and I look back on those failures with regret. Inaction is also a choice, after all, and it can have devastating consequences--look at the Holocaust, for example.

A diversion

Your result for The Find Your Philosophical Era! Test...

The Modern

31% Ancient, 6% Medieval, 38% Modern and 25% Post-Modern!

Congratulations! You are: a Modern!

(Keep in mind, by Modern, I mean the era which began around the 17th century and ended in the 20th century.)

Throughout the Modern era, philosophers and scientists were forced constantly to do battle with the forces of censorship, philosophical conservatism, and pure inertia.This was the age in which “innovation” was a bad word, and the Moderns were all about innovation. Despite all the opposition they faced, Modern philosophy is the most optimistic of any era. The Moderns seem really to have believed that, for instance, giving men freedom from kings and priests and tyrants will make men happier and better. Their goal was a political community based on reason. But while some Moderns concentrated on becoming more and more scientific, rational and civilized, others, such as Wordsworth and Rousseau, reacted against this trend by turning back to what they saw as the pure, uncorrupted truths of nature. However, the Romantic and the Scientific trends in Modernism are two sides of the same coin. The two are united in their disdain for the status quo and for social norms, and their search for more real, trustworthy truths upon which to build the new society they all dreamed of.

Some modern philosophers: Newton, Voltaire, Bacon, Hume, Rousseau, Hobbes, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère, Darwin, J.S. Mill

Some modern artists: Da Vinci, Molière, Shakespeare, Bernard Shaw, Mozart, Cervantes, Swift

Typical modern art forms: opera, comic plays, portraiture, the concerto, the confessional memoir, descriptions of nature

Take The Find Your Philosophical Era! Test at HelloQuizzy

Funny that I've mostly studied mediaeval and ancient philosophy, yet my outlook is modern and I scored REALLY low in the mediaeval category. YKWIA, who told me about this quiz, came out as mediaeval, which didn't surprise me. But then he's the true philosopher. I just go on intuition, mainly, rather than thought.